Key (A-Z Story Game)
by claraowl
Summary: Maria has found a map and consults Ren and Kyoko on where it might lead. Treasure? Love? Family? And what insanity might they encounter as they follow the directions? Written for the A-Z Story Game. Oneshot with some light Ren/Kyoko; a birthday present for one of the friends who let me pick her brain.


**I wholeheartedly blame my friends and parents for the unrestrained weirdness of this, as I picked their brains for ideas on the way back from watching "Some Like It Hot" at a gorgeous theater that shows old movies. And, no, I'd not heard of half of these things prior to that fateful evening. You have been warned: Weirdness abounds. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha.**

**You have no idea how many times I typed 'frogs' when I meant to type 'toads.' This will make some semblance of sense shortly. I do not own Skip Beat; only the parody song is mine.**

It had all started, as it has an odd tendency to do, on a perfectly ordinary morning at LME – or, at least, as ordinary as LME ever gets. Maria had been walking down one of the labyrinth-like halls when she'd spotted a roll of parchment sticking out of one of the potted plants. As she is Maria and therefore inherently curious, she'd plucked it out and opened it; on it was a map that someone had obviously spent several painstaking hours inking… but where did it lead? She, unfortunately, was as bad at reading maps as she was curious, and therefore could not make heads nor tails of the minute markings and abbreviations. Who could she ask? Grandfather had said that he, unfortunately, would be extremely busy all day, and only to come see him for food or emergency. He'd apologized, though, and promised that they'd have a board game marathon the next day, so she did not mind. But as for this….

"Is something wrong, Maria-chan? You look awfully concerned about something. Can I help?"

Maria's head snapped up, and she launched herself at the speaker for a hug. "Onee-san!"

Kyoko beamed at her in their hug. "Guess what?"

"What?" Maria inquired, unable to think of anything strange enough to make her onee-san beam.

"I have a new Love Me assignment for the day," the elder girl announced with pride.

This, obviously, left Maria more than perplexed. Why was her onee-san happy about a Love Me assignment? "Huh…?"

"My schedule was clear today, so the president gave me an excuse to spend it with you!"

Maria gasped excitedly, having connected Kyoko's words. "So your assignment is to stay with me today?"

"Yup!" Kyoko beamed, now, at Maria's ecstatic expression. "I think that this will be my favorite assignment."

Maria's eyes sparkled, and she went to clap her hands together – only to remember the parchment in her fist at the last moment. "Oh! Onee-san, I have something for us to do!"

"What?" Kyoko inquired eagerly, taking the parchment that Maria offered. Within moments, the elder girl's face was flushed with excitement, and her eyes sparkled. "Maria-chan," she breathed, "do you realize what this is?"

Maria shook her head, and admitted, "I haven't learned how to read maps yet."

"It's…" Kyoko glanced around to confirm that there was no one to eavesdrop, and then whispered continued, "…a map to treasure! We can have our own adventure!"

Now Maria's eyes and cheeks mirrored Kyoko's. "Really?"

"Really!"

"Then let's go! Where do we start?" she asked, her curls bouncing as she nearly danced about in excitement.

"Right here," Kyoko explained, spreading the map out on the floor and pointing to an 'X' surrounded by a circle. "This is a key part to understanding a map: Know your starting point. We're here," she tapped the circumscribed 'X' again, "and we need to follow this trail," she traced a dotted line, "until we reach the 'X' over here," she finished, tapping a large, red 'X' that clearly marked the spot. "There also seems to be a coded set of instructions…."

"We need a disguise," Maria announced abruptly, when Kyoko had just begun to decipher the first line.

"We do?" Kyoko blinked, and then looked down at her Love Me uniform. "You're right. It's best to be discreet on treasure hunts, and this uniform is anything but."

Maria glanced right and left, and then dragged Kyoko into a room three doors down to the left. "Here. This one should work for us!"

Kyoko merely blinked at her, any doubt that she'd ever harbored that Maria was indeed Lory's granddaughter gone forever from her mind. "You're… serious?"

"Of course!" Maria replied, shocked. "Isn't this more discreet than the Love Me uniform?"

"Yes, but it's a…"

"Good! Now let's put it on so we can go!"

Kyoko simply laughed and gave in to Maria's hereditary madness.

Ren's morning had been, thus far, frighteningly uneventful. He had not had any difficulties in getting to work on time, as there had not really been any reason for him to come today – it was _technically_ his day off – but he'd had nothing to do today. He had _not_ come in (or so he told himself) purely because Yashiro had mentioned that Kyoko would be at LME all day. He was just going to catch up on some paperwork, perhaps drop by the Love Me section for a few minutes, and then go home. He was not here because he was a helplessly romantic, sappy fool who could not go more than a week without seeing the object of his affections. Really.

Of course, whenever Ren has an uneventful start to a day, something always happens to shake things up a little… just usually not on this scale. "Maria-chan, may I ask…?"

Maria, who had just skidded up to him with what appeared to be someone in a two-person, half-empty costume, panted, "No time to explain! Get in the llama!"

Let it never be said that Ren did not cope well with the unusual; he'd known Lory far too long to not have developed an ability to cope. So instead of asking why or doing anything a perfectly sane person would do, he simple got in the front half of the cowboy-hat-wearing llama costume and began following Maria, who was now holding a door open for him and his yet-unknown partner. Only when Maria had checked every corner of the room and locked the door did she give the signal for the costume to be opened once more.

"I'm sorry about that, Ren-sama, but it was necessary," Maria bowed, much in the way she had seen Kyoko do many times. "But onee-san was looking over the instructions, and the treasure map said that we needed a third person for our team, preferably someone who could easily reach objects on high shelves. We would've explained this before you put on the costume, but it's important for us to remain discreet."

"So you chose a llama, the epitome of discretion," he smiled, sans sparkles; he had not missed the way that Kyoko had positively influenced Maria, and found it adorable.

"Well, it was more discreet than my Love Me uniform," said a small voice from behind him. He spun around quickly, forgetting that his feet were still in the llama costume, and wound up knocking the pair of them over. As this is Ren and Kyoko, their luck decreed that Kyoko also lose her balance and land directly atop Ren. Maria giggled as she watched the two of them fluster, apologize, and trip several more times while attempting to get up. It was only when she ceased giggling and helped them unzip the costume that they were able to stand again.

Ren cleared his throat, and attempted to diffuse the suddenly awkward situation. "Well, I am free today… a treasure map, you say?"

Kyoko nodded, and pulled the map out of a pocket of her jumpsuit. "I've only translated the first line of instructions, though."

"Shall we begin?" Maria beamed, looking between two of her favorite people (and favorite prospective couple, as she had recently forced herself to accept that Ren-sama was too old for her – and the only other woman worthy of Ren-sama was onee-san, though she was perhaps a little _too_ good for him). Kyoko nodded excitedly in response, and resumed her translation. Ren smiled at the two heart-sisters, and was suddenly _very_ glad that he'd come into work on his day off. It looked like things would be extremely interesting, especially if his suspicion about the map's origin was correct….

"I've got it!" Kyoko triumphantly cried a few minutes later. "The translation is complete!"

Maria let out a small cheer, and Ren allowed himself a grin. Bouncing excitedly, the young girl asked, "What do we do next?"

Kyoko glanced through the instructions for following the map, and then reported, "We are to take eleven paces south from the plant where you found this, turn left, and enter the first room on the right."

"Let's go!" Maria then stared expectantly at her two older friends, who blinked at her for a moment before her expectation for them clicked.

"Do we truly need to get back in the costume, Maria-chan?" Ren inquired. "Wouldn't it just be better to let Mogami-san change out of her Love Me uniform?"

She shook her head. "You're too recognizable, Ren-sama, and we'll be delayed if people stop you to talk."

"I really don't mind, Tsuruga-san," Kyoko piped up, already in the back half of the llama costume. "Besides, Maria-chan has a point."

"But—" Ren began to protest, only to be cut off simultaneously by Maria and Kyoko.

"Please, Ren-sama?" Maria whimpered, giving him the look that many little girls spend hours perfecting for the purpose of grown-up manipulation.

"Please?" Kyoko whispered, giving him her puppy eyes. He instantly, fiercely regretted exposing her to his version of those eyes as Cain; he knew that she was a knowledge sponge, so why hadn't he realized that those eyes would be turned on him eventually?

"Yes, alright," he said, straight-faced, more to cease her use of those dangerous, dangerous eyes than for anything else. He hastily got in the front half of the llama costume – which, belatedly, he realized had a removable cowboy hat – and Maria zipped them into it. She then got into the saddle, and steered them towards the door. This nearly gave Kyoko a giggling fit for three reasons. One, Maria's shoes were brushing against a particularly ticklish point on her back. Two, Maria was riding atop a two-person llama costume, and no one would find it remotely odd in the halls of LME. Three, Tsuruga Ren had been convinced to wear the costume by Maria's precious little girl aura (or so Kyoko thought; as it was much healthier for all involved, she would be allowed to continue thinking that). She muffed a snicker in her hand.

"Is something amusing, Mogami-san?" Ren inquired as they made their way back to the plant.

"No talking!" Maria reprimanded happily, saving Kyoko from having to respond. "You're a llama, so make llama sounds!"

"What noise does a llama make?" Kyoko whispered.

"It's kind of a gurgle-y sound, mixed with a low-pitched 'moo,'" Maria whispered back. "Grandfather taught me when he went through a zookeeper phase," she added, sensing their perplexed looks. She tapped for them to turn around (they'd reached the plant), and began counting the paces. The first Love Me member then proceeded to produce an almost perfect llama sound, slightly startling a passing newcomer. Maria giggled, and Ren wondered again at his kohai's and love's talents. Ren copied the sound, and Maria nearly fell from her perch due to her laughter. "Please never do that again," she gasped, in-between giggles.

"Do you expect me to be a mute half-llama?" Ren inquired in mock-indignation, reveling in the fact that, due to the close quarters of this costume, he was able to actually feel Kyoko holding back her laughter.

"Yes," Maria giggled. "Onee-san does a less ridiculous half-llama sound, so she gets to be the voice box, even though she's also in charge of the tail." She checked her mental count, and then instructed, "Turn left here." They did so – with only minor jostling – and Maria told them to turn right almost immediately. She scrambled out of her saddle, pulled out a spare master key that she may or may not have filched from Lory's desk drawer, and unlocked the door. It swung open, nearly hitting Ren in his llama-face. A giggle escaped Maria at this point, and she let the other two know that it was safe for them to enter the room. At least, she thought it was safe. She was shortly to be proven utterly wrong.

As soon as the door had been shut and locked behind them, the ceiling simply opened up; what must have been seventeen gallon buckets of paint dumped their contents on the llama costume (Maria had managed to take shelter under a nearby table, and avoided being doused in the multitude of colors). The young girl blinked once, twice, thrice – and then stuffed her fist into her mouth, biting down hard enough to chase away her admittedly unkind but utterly required laughter (part of her noted that she'd been giggling an unusual amount that day, but that portion of her brain was shushed before it could draw conclusions). Ren and Kyoko were not nearly as amused, as they now had to figure out precisely _how_ they were going to escape the sodden llama costume. Maria helped only in that she rescued the cowboy hat, which had miraculously escaped the paint. This was when Ren grew suspicious (but of what or whom shall not be revealed here, though the reader no doubt has guessed it by now).

Precisely seventeen (a possible key of a number that day, it might transpire) minutes later, the two favorite playthings of the president had escaped the llama costume, and were attempting to stuff it down the laundry chute. Kyoko spared a moment to wonder aloud why there was a laundry chute in this room – couldn't the president just send his costumes out for cleaning?

"Oh, no," Maria gasped, eyes wide. "Grandfather would never trust just anyone with all of his costumes—and especially not with his socks!"

Kyoko blinked. "His socks?"

"Yup! Grandfather is very particular about his socks. They always match his costumes, you know. He even has socks to match the costumes that have sandals, just in case." Maria nodded very seriously here, and Kyoko, catching on, echoed her nod.

"I see. That makes sense – after all, certain dry cleaners don't actually wash things 'dry,' per se." She paused, thinking, before adding, "And they don't always get all the stains out! Sometimes they even make the stains worse than before!"

"_Yes!_ And it's even worse with special costumes, and odd stains! Situations like this—" she gestured to the laundry chute, into which the llama costume had been successfully stuffed only seconds prior, "—are the main reason that Grandfather installed a laundry room, and why the chutes are so large. I bet that even Ren-sama would fit down one!"

"Didn't you once say that Natsuko got lost in the laundry chutes?"

"Yes, we've not found her yet—"

Much to Ren's amusement, the conversation continued in this vein for quite some time. _Honestly_, he thought, _how do I get myself into these situations? You'd think that I was living in some sort of manga._ He watched Kyoko gesturing as she spoke of stains and snakes and slippery salespeople – what the three had anything to do with each other, he had no idea; he'd lost track of the conversation ages ago. The raise of volume in the girls' voices pulled Ren away from his danger of smashing the fourth wall to bits.

"No, no, Maria-chan, the key is kinesthetics, not prosthetics – you've got it all wrong!"

"Grandfather keeps saying that, too, but I don't even know what that means!"

"It's the ability to feel the movement of limbs and the body," Kyoko recited, Hermione-style. "I read about it for a school paper."

"Oh," Maria breathed, eyes wide. "That makes so much more sense. I thought that Grandfather was talking about prosthetics, but he meant sensory pads!" She blushed sheepishly, and rubbed at the back of her head. "I feel stupid."

"No, of course not!" Kyoko assured her, crouching down to Maria's eye-level. "I didn't know what it was until a couple weeks ago, and I've been taking science classes much longer than you have! There's no need for you to feel stupid!"

Ren watched, smiling as Maria nodded and hugged her onee-san. _And this woman thinks that she's incapable of love? She's like a mother already… I… I wonder…._

"Ren-sama?" Maria inquired; while he'd been lost in ridiculously fluffy fantasies, she and Kyoko had discovered the next clue. Unfortunately, it was on a high shelf, and there were no climbable chairs in room – it was the beanbag room, and everyone knows that beanbag piles are unstable at best. Fortunately, Ren was tall enough to reach the shelf without even having to straighten his arms completely (had Hikaru been there, he would have squirmed from envy).

"What does it say?" Kyoko inquired eagerly, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Ren smiled warmly at this – she really was too cute for her own good – and was about to speak when Kyoko suddenly let out a wail of despair…

"No! Come back!"

…and with little more than that shout, disappeared down the laundry chute. Ren and Maria were understandably confused, but Maria chose not to question her onee-san and simply jumped down after her. Ren blinked, wondered if sanity was even vaguely useful on a day such as this, pocketed what would be the key to the next portion of their adventure, and slid down the ridiculously large chute after them.

Perhaps an explanation for Kyoko's behavior would be useful at this point. The reader may (or may not, it doesn't really affect the story's plot _too_ much) know that Kyoko's grudges usually had one standing guard atop her head. Said grudge had, when Ren had smiled, been blown backwards and down the laundry chute. Kyoko had felt this, and had gone after the part of her soul (it was, after all, calling for her to rescue it). Maria had then, sensing that there was a good reason for the action, followed suit. Ren followed shortly (really, who knew what dangers might await his princess in this dragon's lair of LME?), and the three were now bumping down the chute. He heard Kyoko's startled yelp, registered Maria's gleeful screech – she'd done this before, on the Natsuko hunt – and then the chute was gone from around him. He landed in a pile of clothes, next to his two companions. Just as he'd opened his mouth to inquire about their well-being (and, if they were well, why Maria still had the cowboy hat) when someone started screaming.

To be technical about it, several some_things_ started screaming – and very tiny, high-pitched screams they were, too. It was as if someone were slowly turning a sharp screw against and into the arm of a stuffed baby doll. Kyoko and Maria looked as startled as Ren felt – Maria thrashed her way over to Ren and hugged his torso (plonking the cowboy hat on his head in the process, as had been her aim all along); Kyoko simply burrowed down into the clothes. It was then that the source of the noise was discovered.

Approximately seventeen hundred Fowler's toads jumped out of the laundry in which the three adventurers had landed, and proceeded to hop all over the room, still screaming (with an occasional _cree_ for kicks and giggles). Maria gaped openly at the bizarre scene, before whispering, "They must have escaped from Grandfather's incubator. He keeps it in a room with a laundry chute because the toads make such a big mess."

Ren could only nod, and was saved the problem of stringing words together coherently by Kyoko, who suddenly surfaced from the pile of clothes with a streak of green paint on her left cheek – from the ill-fated llama costume, no doubt – and a pair of pants on her head like a Native American chief's feathered hat. The confused expression on her face did not help Ren in his efforts to keep his face straight, but a stray toad was his undoing. Rather, what Kyoko did in reaction to the stray toad was.

When said toad hopped into her upward-facing palm, Kyoko held it up as if offering a sacrifice and proclaimed, "This is the frog of truth, and it shall not be silenced!"

Maria lost it – two 'it's, actually: her fragile composure and her grip on Ren's torso. She slipped softly back onto the pile of now toad-free clothing, laughing herself into near-hysterics. Ren's jaw was hanging slightly open, and he was attempting valiantly not to laugh. Kyoko shook the pants off of her head, wondering why they seemed so clean – why all of the clothes (except the llama costume, naturally) seemed so utterly spotless. Weren't they in the laundry to be cleaned, not because they were clean?

The grudge Kyoko she'd dived after sneezed from its vantage point on her shoulder; that particular laundry chute had been dusty, and the grudge Kyokos are allergic to dust.

"Bless you," Kyoko told it; Ren gave her a perplexed look, but decided that the toad's _cree_ must have sounded like a sneeze to Kyoko. The girl in question set the toad down on a vibrantly orange suit and attempted to extricate herself from the pile of clothes – only to trip and become hopelessly entangled in a nearby accordion costume. Maria, used to the oddities of LME, simply rolled over the top of the pile and landed with a thump on the floor. Ren, still wearing the cowboy hat, waded his way over to Kyoko, who was fighting for her life – death by accordion costume was one spot below death by rubber duck on her list of least favorite ways to die, and just above drowning in a puddle. Chuckling, as even Ren could not contain himself at the sight that met his eyes, he slowly coaxed Kyoko into letting him carry her out of the clothing pile, accordion costume and all. He did set her down as soon as they'd escaped the cloth kraken, however, as she was well and truly stuck in that costume. It eventually took the combined efforts of the seventeen hundred Fowler's toads to get Kyoko out of the costume. Apparently, the frogs had claimed Kyoko as their goddess – the 'frog of truth' she'd held up in jest had, apparently, been declared high priestess. A toad's mind is a scary, scary thing. (The reader should be glad that this recording of an oh-so-typical day in LME was not written from the point of view of the toads… very glad indeed.)

Eventually, after Kyoko had been freed and finished alternately thanking and apologizing to everyone, she asked, "What is the next clue?"

Ren half-shrugged, and grinned at her. "I don't know, actually – you're the one who knows the code."

"Then give it to her! I want to know what's going to happen next!" Maria squealed, pleased that her Ren-sama hadn't even noticed the continued residence of the cowboy hat on his head – he'd been too worried about and amused by onee-san to even think of headgear of any sort.

Ren handed Kyoko the paper, and she pulled the key she'd made for the code out of her pocket. "Obey…the…rule…of…the…laundry…chute…" she paused in her translation and looked at Maria.

"We did," Maria confirmed. "Go on."

"…and…take…heed…of…the…trender…man's…knowledge…?" She looked up, done with the translation. "What's a trender-man?"

"A trenderman is an internet sensation, according to the kids at school," Maria replied, pushing some curls out of her face. It's a mannequin that gives you a sense of fashion, or at least a change of clothes. I suppose that we're going to meet one relatively soon."

Now, usually in a story, a trenderman would have tapped one of them on the shoulder as soon as the words had left the young Takarada's mouth. This, however, is not a story; it is a recording of what had been a perfectly ordinary day at LME; therefore, the three adventurers and the seventeen hundred Fowler's toads (the latter group still screaming) found it necessary to search for the thing of odd photographs and very bored people with too much time on their hands and internet connection readily available. Fortunately for them, many hands (er, forelegs) made light work, and the thing for which they searched was one of the less terrifying internet sensations – it wasn't technically human, after all, though it held a humanoid shape. The toads – Kyoko's worshippers (or so the authoress assumes, as she cannot speak toad, no matter how desperately she tries) – were the ones who found the trenderman in the end, buried under a pile of what appeared to be killer whale costumes. It then went about giving the three humans fashion, as their clothes were wrinkled, painted, and dusty from going down a disused laundry chute after a paint-covered llama costume had descended. The toads neglected to don the seventeen hundred miniature suits with which the trenderman attempted to provide them.

Apparently in on the day's scheme, the smartly dressed mannequin had each of them don (in mysteriously materializing changing rooms) highly discreet, yet impeccable, everyday clothes. Ren was forced to keep his cowboy hat, as it helped disguise his famous face (and Kyoko had looked slightly disappointed when he'd been about to remove it – which was more effectively persuasive in getting Ren to keep it on will be left up to the reader). The trenderman then consulted the seventeen hundred toads, gathered that Kyoko was the de facto leader of this operation, and handed her the next clue. It then melted back among the killer whale costumes and vanished from sight. Maria emerged from the changing room (having been the last to change, and therefore having missed the last exchange), and asked if Kyoko would zip up the back of her new dress.

Kyoko did so (Ren politely looked away, though part of him melted at the thought of Kyoko as a mother – to his children, of course), and then translated the next clue. "The…key… is in…all…but…found in…the one…not occurring…naturally. The sky… shows all but… the one you…seek." She blinked. "Tsuruga-san, will you check the map? We should be right on course, so maybe it'll show us where we're to go next."

Ren nodded, and pulled the treasure map from his pocket, where he'd put it after changing.

Kyoko turned to her honorary little sister. "Maria-chan, do you know anything that might fit this description? You know LME the best out of the three of us."

Maria sank into thought for several long moments, and then volunteered, a bit sheepishly, "I'm not overly familiar with the lower levels. Grandfather doesn't like me wandering too far out of hollering distance, even with the intercom, so I've not been able to explore much. He got very upset the last time I went down the laundry chute." Kyoko wisely chose not to ask why she'd been down the laundry chute before, and if it were separate from the last time Natsuko had gone missing (which it was; the one during the Natsuko-hunt had been her second excursion down the chutes).

"I may have something," Ren volunteered, a few silent seconds later. "The dotted line of the map appears to lead up to the next floor. Does the president have any oddly decorated staircases here?"

"No, not that I can think of," Maria sighed. "There's just the rainbow staircase, but that's not really all that odd—"

The toads, which had been silent until now, suddenly let out a large, synchronized scream. Kyoko crouched down among her worshippers, deciding that they must be royal steeds of the faeries, and asked of them: "Is that it?"

The toads let out a series of happy _crees_. Kyoko took this to mean 'yes,' and asked Maria to lead them to the rainbow staircase; the toads followed along hoppily and happily. Ren noticed their emotion of movement and paused for a moment, as if sensing a truly pathetic attempt at a joke in the offing. The moment passed and he shook off the odd feeling, deciding that the odd events of the day were getting to his head, and vowing to go to bed early that night. They halted before the staircase, and observed, for a moment, its spiraled, multicolored impressiveness.

"What was the clue again, onee-san?"

"'The key is in all, but found in the one not occurring naturally. The sky shows all but the one you seek,'" she recited, then added, "which I'm guessing is referring to the colors." Ren nodded at this rather obvious statement, and the toads screamed happily at their goddess's apparent genius.

"Black, then?" Maria inquired, tilting her head slightly towards Kyoko. The elder girl nodded, and hurried up to the seventeenth step – which was, of course, the black one. A few perfunctory knocks proved it to be at least slightly hollow; now, the only problem was how to get to the key within its hidden compartment. She tugged, fruitlessly, at the edge of it from her perch on the purple step above it. Unfortunately, this only resulted in her landing on her bum. Maria bit back a laugh after ascertaining that Kyoko was okay, and Ren decided to fight with the step in her stead. He mentally cursed himself for not having a screwdriver or a pocketknife with him – he'd forgotten the pocketknife on his bedside table that morning. Of course, it's not like the pocketknife would've been effective in any case, but there's just something so satisfying about hacking at inanimate objects with one. Then again, this tends to scare people, so it's probably best that he'd forgotten it that day. It did not fit his image, after all, and could have potentially skewered a few toads by accident. Ren was therefore forced to take a more logical approach, and began feeling around the step for a hidden latch. This too proved fruitless, but it at least made the team seem slightly less pathetic.

In the end, Maria was the one who opened it – quite by accident, of course; she'd simply stepped on a point where the black paint was smudged. A section of the darkness slid away, to reveal—

"Is that a paint-by-numbers?" Kyoko asked interestedly, leaning close for a better look (Ren shifted his stance so that he could catch her if she overbalanced).

"I think so, but there's no paint…" Ren said softly. Kyoko shifted slightly, as if some part of her was aware of the purpose of his shift, and aware of the emotion in his voice…. Or she might just have been uncomfortable in her previous position. You never know.

"It said that the 'key is in all,' right?" Maria piped up suddenly, after a long silence.

Kyoko nodded. "And the 'sky shows all but the one you seek.'"

"So could there be something in the other steps?" Maria wondered; the toads screamed approval, and claimed Maria as their demigoddess. Ren went ignored by the toads; he had enough human worshipers, anyway – he didn't need toad ones as well.

Kyoko stood abruptly, and began making her careful way back down to the bottom of the steps. Once there, she crouched down to examine the paintwork – and then exclaimed triumphantly, "A smudge!" She stepped on it, and a colored panel slid away to reveal a piece of colored chalk, one that matched the step. Understanding sparked in the eyes of the two heart-sisters.

Ren blinked, but made his way up to the top step – there was a smudge there as well. And so the three of them hurriedly collected the chalk before returning to the black step. Upon further investigation, the pieces of chalk had numbers carved onto their sides. The tallest of the trio stepped back and let the more artistic two go to work on the color-by-numbers panel, occasionally handing them chalk as he watched. Really, the only one crazy enough to come up with something like this was…

The picture was completely colored in; it popped out with a _click._ Out from inside the depths of the staircase slithered Natsuko, decked in balls of holly and happy to be reunited with Maria once more. She spat a piece of paper in her human friend's lap, and then flicked her tongue at the toads. They let out a scream, and the anaconda decided to seek out Lory; she preferred her meals to be silent when they died. The only signs that she had been there at all were the ball of holly in Kyoko's hand and the paper in Maria's lap.

"A… song sheet?" Maria blinked. "Why would our key be a song sheet?"

Ren absentmindedly rubbed his fingers over the rim of his cowboy hat, but did not voice his rising suspicions. "Perhaps the next location will make it clear?"

The two pairs of human eyes were joined by seventeen hundred pairs of toad eyes in their stare at Kyoko; she blinked, and resurfaced from la-la land. The holly faeries were sad to see her go. "Oh! Right! Um…" she yelped, and examined the instructions on the side of the map. "We're to go up this staircase, follow the first hall on our left until we can't go any further, and then go up the next flight of stairs. The sixth room on our right will be our final destination."

"We're that close already?" Maria gasped excitedly, jumping to her feet. "Let's go! Maybe we'll be done in time to tell Grandfather about it over lunch!"

Ren chuckled good-naturedly as Maria dashed up the steps, with Kyoko calling up after her (as she also climbed them far too quickly) not to run on the steps. He followed, taking the steps two at a time without the need for any speed – his legs were, after all, ridiculously long.

As it transpired, the trek to their final destination was not as easy as it sounded. For starters, someone (meaning Lory) had deemed in necessary that anyone who wanted to travel down that hall that day must first beat a series of carnival-type games, including whack-a-mole, ring-the-bell, and a spider-smashing game which consisted of a bunch of light-up buttons shaped like spiders that squealed in pain when stepped upon. Fortunately, the toads were the enthusiastic type as a whole, so they managed to promptly beat the whack-a-mole and spider-squashing games. Maria then insisted (much to Lory's eternal delight, when he reviewed the security cameras) that her onee-san and Ren-sama swing the hammer for the bell-ringing together. After she'd pleaded over Kyoko's protests that Ren was more than capable of ringing the bell on his own and so her help was utterly pointless, the event happened. Maria giggled at the sight (really, Ren-sama needed to hurry up and admit that he loved onee-san before drastic measures were required… _very_ drastic measures). The toads quickly finished defeating the foul spiders and moles, then basked in the praise that their goddess showered upon them. Ren bit back a laugh (he found it so utterly _her_ of her to take the time to praise toads for a job well done), and they continued their trip down the hall. They got as far as the stairwell before their journey was once more interrupted.

The stairwell was completely filled with silk flowers of every color and type imaginable to the three adventurers and their toads – which was saying something, as Kyoko spent an awful lot of time in la-la land, which is full of flowers. She, of course, immediately danced into the flowers, the faeries calling out to her. Ren barely managed to keep her from disappearing by grabbing ahold of her hand – and Maria grabbed his other hand, chasing after her onee-san. The three vanished from sight, and the toads followed. The most challenging bit of this particular obstacle proved to be not getting up the steps, which was admittedly tricky, but convincing Kyoko to leave the flowers. Ren tried, and failed promptly when he saw the flash of sadness in her eyes; Maria got drawn into la-la land. In the end, the toads liberated them, screaming until their beloved goddess snapped out of her daze. She apologized profusely, as was in her nature, and then the adventure continued.

Surprisingly, no more obstacles stood between them and the sixth door, so they soon reached the spot where the 'X' was marked on the map. Maria braced herself, swung open the door – and was met with the sight of an almost completely empty room, save a few chairs and a rather holey-looking wall. Kyoko tilted her head (Ren was silently rejoicing that she'd not reacted badly to his previous grasping of her hand) and asked, "Maria-chan, do you still have the master key?"

Maria nodded, and held it up. "Which keyhole, do you think?"

"Well, as someone tall was required, why don't I," Ren suggested, straightening to his full height, "try it on some of the higher-up ones first?"

When Maria accepted the logic of this, she gave him the key. "Please be careful with it."

Before Ren could reply, Kyoko inquired, "Are there more than seventeen keyholes up there?"

"Yes," Ren replied quizzically, quirking an eyebrow.

"Well, it just seemed to be a theme today, so I thought that maybe that would be a good one to try first," she explained in a rush. "It might just be a coincidence, though, so…."

"There's no such thing, Mogami-san." He put the key in the lock, and turned.

Now, normally in such situations, one of two things would happen: Either one, a giant monster or other deadly danger of some sort would appear or, two, it would be the right lock and the treasure would be released to the adventurers. Of course, as there was nothing particularly normal about that day at LME, neither of these things happened. Instead, the hole squirted mustard at the beings in the room, followed shortly by a tiny green light that showed which keyholes they'd tried. There proceeded to be several minutes of bewildered blinking, which only ended when the toads decided that they liked mustard, and that the said condiment seemed to be bothering their goddess, and therefore must be destroyed. Needless to say, Kyoko soon disappeared under a pile of toads. It took several minutes to free her.

Ren handed the key to Kyoko, and she conferred with the high priestess toad on her shoulder before inserting the key into the seventeenth keyhole diagonally down from the left. Essentially the same thing as before occurred, except with ketchup. Then Maria gave it a whirl; soy sauce drenched them. This cycle continued for some time, with many different condiments and the occasional spice, until they were facing a wall of tiny, glowing green lights.

"None of them worked," Maria whispered, saddened. "What are we going to do now?"

Kyoko, having remembered something, thumped her fist into her open palm. "The last clue! The song!"

Her eyes grew wide, and she fished the song out of her pocket. "There's just the lyrics, though… no tune…."

"We have a tune," piped up Ren unexpectedly. "Natsuko gave us a ball of holly, right? So we just need to sing whatever the song is to the tune of "Deck the Halls" – the English Christmas song." Kyoko and Maria silently wondered why Ren knew of the song, but set that aside for a later date. They had singing to do.

_/Paint the walls/_

_ Will irksome colors/_

_ And let all the pies/_

_ Go flying here/_

_ Let us go/_

_ And bother people/_

_ And do it all/_

_ In good cheer/_

Unfortunately, while the novelty song was fun for the toads to listen to, the humans' rendition of it (in its many-versed entirety) had no effect. Fortunately, the glow of the green lights had finally succeeded in mesmerizing the toads, and they began to croon wordlessly in the precise key and tune combination required for the treasure to be relinquished. The wall slid open, appeared to spit out a treasure chest, and then slid shut once more, the lights in the keyholes winking out one by one. The toads then bowed to their goddess and hopped down the nearest laundry chute, where Lory would later find them and take them back to their habitat room.

The three adventurers decided not to comment on toads bowing, and instead turned to the treasure chest that had been so neatly spat from the wall (there wasn't even any wall saliva!). It was, surprisingly, unlocked. This would have been unnerving, had Lory not suddenly burst from its depths with surprising amounts of confetti as an accompaniment.

"Surprise!" He waited a few beats, and then added, with a pout, "You don't seem overly surprised."

Kyoko had retreated to la-la land for her own mental safety after she'd heard Lory's initial yell, and therefore gave no answer. Ren simply smiled in a way that indicated that he'd known all along. Maria giggled, hugged Lory, and informed him that she'd had a vague suspicion that he'd try something like this, as serious paperwork always made him dreadfully bored…and boredom usually resulted in odd quests. Lory chuckled, produced two small tiaras and a bandana from the treasure chest for the 'treasure,' and volunteered to buy lunch for everyone as congratulations for finishing his quest in record time – and for beta-testing it, as he was considering using it to welcome new employees. Ren took a moment to pity future employees while Maria and Kyoko were exclaiming over their tiaras, and then fastened his bandana around his neck. He knew that Kyoko would be disappointed (not that she'd say anything, of course) if he took off that ridiculous hat, so he opted instead to keep it on, bear the ridicule, and see the smile on her face.

And so, over lunch (accompanied by Lory's rescued laughing owl, one he'd saved from extinction and was working on cloning, which laughed like a madman whenever Lory told it, "Punchline. That's your cue."), Lory was regaled with firsthand accounts of the different aspects of the quest, and was accidentally given some information to use in the grand plot to get Kyoko and Ren together. The two heart-sisters then thanked Lory for the meal and bid the men farewell, rushing off for another grand adventure that afternoon… but that's a different story entirely. This story draws to a close with the click of a lock – and its prompt removal through an afternoon of fun and slight insanity.

For what better key is there to a heart than a healthy mix of adventures, friends, toads, and crazy schemes?

(If one is ever found, let Lory know… he's always searching for new ways to spread the joy of love throughout the world.)

**OKAY! Done!**

**This was ridiculously challenging to write for whatever unknown reason… maybe I need to up my crazy intake. I'm running low on insanity. I hope that this was weird enough… and that you enjoyed it! :D Thoughts?**

**I don't know how many times I typed 'frog' instead of 'toad'… it's ridiculous…. But Fowler's toads do actually exist. As do two-person llama costumes and laughing owls, though the latter are sadly extinct, and have been since the twentieth century. *sighs* Therefore, I gave Lory one to save. Call it wishful thinking.**

**Please review~! I hope that this made you laugh. ^^**


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